


Love is a Battlefield

by Unit25A



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, let this soft old man and his parasite lady have a moment damnit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 20:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10998084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unit25A/pseuds/Unit25A
Summary: Venom Snake and Quiet enjoy a moment of stillness. But at the end of the day, they are still on a battlefield.





	Love is a Battlefield

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>/ Hello there! A while ago, I got really into "Metal Gear Solid" while watching my boyfriend play "The Phantom Pain". Metal Gear is a fantastic series, and even with all of it's faults I still think V was still a really good, extremely emotional game. I adored Quiet and Venom's relationship. I wrote this while I listened to the soundtrack a lot (where I got the title from) and I think having "Africa" by Toto was a really good call. That song evokes a certain atmosphere I tried to capture. Enjoy, and please let me know what you thought!

\- Unit25A /<

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“Love Is A Battlefield”

Nothing would grow on this land again.

Big Boss had come to this realization during the long hours he had spent on his stomach in the dirt, the sights of his sniper rifle pointed into the enemy encampment. Next to him lay Quiet, still as a corpse, eyes fixed on the point where the target would appear with laser-like focus. Whoever had trained her, regardless of the dubious methods they had used, had made her into a force to be reckoned with with a sniper rifle.

When this conflict ended, if it ever did, nothing would be able to grow on the land on which this barracks stood. He could see a few lines of crops planted in the dusty earth, a vain effort by the soldiers stationed in the barracks to grow something to feed themselves, but all they had managed to grow were a few weeds. Ocelot had told him it had once been a village with a population of over one hundred. There was still evidence of the old village, like the stone well and the dilapidated huts. He tried to imagine what it might have looked like bustling with life, with women cooking as children ran between their legs and men tending to the crops. But he couldn’t. All he could see was a militia outpost, guards, and stillness.

Choking, oppressive stillness.

It was a battlefield now. He told himself to enjoy the stillness, to treat it as a moment of reprieve. But he couldn’t shake the feeling of being suffocated. Regardless of how he was feeling, it was still a beautiful Afghan evening. The ground underneath Venom Snake and Quiet was still tinged with heat from the heat of the scorching sun and smelled rich and earthy from the afternoon rain. The air was blessedly cool, making the scarce breaths of wind almost chilly when they blew lazily on their faces. If he shut his eye for a moment, he could almost forget he was on a battlefield. He could almost, just about, imagine he and Quiet were lying on a beach somewhere far far away, a place full of life-

But he couldn’t turn away from reality.

He was on a battlefield. Everywhere he went nowadays was a battlefield. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been somewhere alive. He turned away from his sniper companion’s peripheral vision, and tried to rub the skin underneath his eyepatch discreetly. Despite the patch covering his ruined eye and some, it didn’t stop sand and dirt getting under it and irritating the scar. Though it was more difficult to clean the scar without taking off the eyepatch, he didn’t want to subject the girl to the gruesome sight of his battle scars. He felt her eyes on him, and turned his head to give her the all clear. She was staring at him intently, with equal parts curiosity and concern in her green eyes. She stretched out a gloved hand towards his face, but hesitated, a furrow of worry creasing her face. She removed her glove, and slowly extended her hand to touch his cheek. He lay there, frozen. It wasn’t fear that held him there- despite having seen her disembowel a man for trying to clothe her, he wasn’t frightened of her- but he couldn’t bring himself to tear away from her gaze. Her hand was surprisingly warm against his face.Most snipers he knew had cold hands, their warmth being the price they paid for detachment, for precision. Her fingers moved up his face, and removed the patch over his eye. He internally winced as she drew back from him, her eyes wide. What lurked beneath that eyepatch was not pretty by a long shot. His eyeball had been removed, and his upper and lower eyelids had been fused. A jagged, ugly purple scar ran down the middle of his eye socket where his eye had been damaged. He was about to swat her hand away and pull back down the patch, an odd feeling of humiliation coursing through him. But there was no fear, or disgust, or pity in her eyes.

Just sadness.

A deep aching sadness.

He could see it- she recognised this loss he felt within herself too. He watched as she took the cloth wrapped around her canteen, and poured water over it. She put the cloth to his scarred eye, and gently brushed it over his eyelid. He had not even believed that tenderness like this still existed in the world any more. Venom Snake stared into her eyes as her hand moved across his face. They were a brilliant green, the colour the earth had been before it had been scorched, before blood had soaked it. When she had finished, she kept her hand against his face, her eyes still fixed on him, his eyes on her.

CRACK!

The sound of gunfire snapped them out of their reverie. They had a job to do.

And nothing, not even love could grow on a battlefield.

~The End~

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>/ Thanks very much for reading!

\- Unit 25A /<

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